So that I might know how and why the Lord sometimes permits spirits in the other life to undergo such punishments and torments as they do, I was let into the supposition as if a certain very friendly spirit would be brought into most severe punishments, although it was others.* And then I was held in that supposition that if he did not undergo the most grievous kinds of punishments, he would never become good. In that state of mind I was held with the conviction that it would be impossible for him to become good unless he were thus tempered. In that state I was unable to feel at all sorry for him, much less come to his aid, for I had at heart the good that would come of it, which I was constantly being inspired to turn over in my mind. From this I am able to know how the Lord permits such punishments, even severe ones, because He turns everything into good, intending nothing else but good, and it is the means for that spirit's reformation. 1748, 19 Sept. * The index has "it was not so."